Amendments to the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 (GSIUR)

The HSE is consulting on changes to the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 (GSIUR). In summary, the changes are:

• amendments to regulation 36(3) to introduce flexibility in the timing of landlords annual gas safety checks
• clarify that only gas safety defects should be recorded
• disapplication for compressed natural gas (CNG) filling stations fed by a dedicated metered gas supply from the majority of the requirements of GSIUR, bringing them in line with other industrial premises
• amend GSIUR to incorporate the existing exemption certificate no.1 to regulation 26(9)(c), which sets out the circumstances where engineers can carry out alternative safety checks when the prescribed tests are not possible. The text of the exemption is available in the Certificate of Exemption No 1 of 2015
• designation of Service Layer Engineers (SLEs) as a “member of a class of persons” under regulation 3(3) (this is an administrative change, not a change to legislation).

The consultation document notes that it is unlikely that all of the proposals will be relevant to everyone.  As such, the consultation document has been structured into separate parts so that you can quickly find the proposed amendments that are of interest to you.

Background

At present, under Regulation 36(3)(a) of GSIUR landlords are required to carry out gas safety checks on their properties “…at intervals of no more than 12 months since it was last checked for safety…”.

In order to ensure that checks are carried out at intervals of not more than 12 months many landlords start the process for gaining access to properties at around 10.5 months after the last check, according to a survey carried out by CORGI Technical Services. However, since in about 75% of cases landlords do gain access promptly, this leads to a shortening of the safety check cycle year-on-year. If landlords carry out a gas safety check every 10.5 months this results in 10 annual gas safety checks being completed over a 9 year period, instead of the statutory.

Guidance

The HSE has also produced guidance to support the implementation of the proposed changes to explain how the changes will work in practice. It is noted that this does not include any material on the changes proposed to 36(3) (c) (v) as this change is self-explanatory. The proposed guidance is set out within the consultation document.

The consultation period ends on 27 January 2017.

HSE

November 2016